BUSOGA SHINING LIGHT ASSOCIATION (BSLA)

2010-02-17T21:33:00.001+03:00

Busoga Shining Light Association (BSLA) was founded in 2002 and registered in as a community based organisation by Iganga District Administration Department of Culture and Community Development.

The purpose was to bring together the small and medium holder farmers (Entrepreneurs) to form a strong co-operative society of farmers in the district. In this regard BSLA would have a forum for group marketing, information exchange and networking with developed and developing partners.

Training farmers in agronomic practices

2009-03-16T06:23:00.004+03:00

Along side with setting up the demos, farmers have been introduced to a number of agronomic principals like: early land preparation, use of improved seeds, timely planting, use of fertilizers e.g. DAP, spacing and optimum plant population in the field including gap filling, weed control (timely weeding) top dressing using UREA, application of savine dust to control stalk borers, timely harvesting. On farm training shall be dobe concurrently to monitor the performance of the adaptors.

Setting up demonstration gardens

2009-03-16T06:17:00.003+03:00

BSLA is going to set up ten demos during the first rains in this season. Willing farmers have already been identified to offer the land worth an acre. The group members shall participate in activities like planting, monitoring the weeding process, participating in fertilizer application and control of stalk borers and harvesting.

Training farmers

2009-03-16T05:05:00.011+03:00

BSLA is promoting commercial agriculture production for increased house hold income and food security inthe district. The organization has plans to implement a maize production project with a purpose of increasing maize production and improving its quality in 10 farmer groups.

Each group has 18 members and BSLA is providing the group with inputs for an acre for demonstration purposes. In the picture you can see DAP, UREA & maize seeds in stock ready to be distributed to the farmers groups. Waiswa Ajab distributed DAP and Maize seeds to Igombe integrated farmers centre group, the group is actively egaged in maize production. the group members say that maize is used for food and cash crop.

During the farmers training in receord management and Agronomy, Waiswa Ajab and Naigaga Olivia demonstrated how a farmer can plant maize in the rows in order to get better yields. Farmers of Abalyogero group said that they have been getting 10 bags in an acre.

Helping Orphans Help Themselves

2008-08-11T08:59:00.008+03:00

BSLA is starting a child sponsorship program with 5 children who lost both parents due to the effects of HIV/AIDS. The Child sponsorship will aim at connecting Ugandan children with people that care like you. Child sponsorship means the money you give to a child helps to send them to school, helps feed them, buy books and school uniform needed for schooling, and also covers basic medical care.

Children who will be sponsored are those whose parents are not there for them and these are children who are orphaned due to HIV/AIDS. You get to see and feel the difference your support makes, through the eyes of your sponsored child and their regular letters and photographs.

How much can it cost to sponsor a child in Uganda?

£15 pounds of that equivalent in other currencies will cover the basic needs of a child including school fees, books, uniform and basic medical care

How you can sponsor a child?

You can pay your monthly support using any of the methods bellow

You can send cheques made payable to AWISH Uganda or Slum Doctors programme

Or you could even send cash

Wanambisi on a visit to BSLA

2008-08-09T07:02:00.005+03:00

Waiswa Ajab takes Wanambisi to his maize field

Maize garden for the widows

2008-08-02T08:13:00.005+03:00

The hunger currently experienced by millions across the region increases the likelihood of HIV infection, as people are driven to adopt risky coping strategies in order to survive. These include traveling to search for food and additional sources of income, migrating, engaging in hazardous work, and, most lethally, women exchanging sex for money or food. These actions facilitate the spread of HIV, putting individuals especially women and children at high risk of infection. For those already infected with the virus, malnutrition exhausts the immune system, which makes people more susceptible to malaria, tuberculosis, and other opportunistic diseases, and leads to faster progression from HIV to AIDS. People weakened by HIV/AIDS find it harder to access food, because they are often not strong enough to work or to walk long distances to the market. Successful efforts to improve the food security and livelihoods of families should reduce the probability of HIV infection, slow the progression of HIV to AIDS and increase the resilience of households trying to recover from HIV-related illness and death.

BSLA provides the farmers (widows) with modern Agronomic extension services & rural based marketing system.

Provide the women with a grant for purchase of seeds, fertilizer and maize drying crib.

Increase youth and woman participation in the fight against HIV/AIDS

Slum Doctors Programe donated $5,250 to support 25 AIDS widows in an integrated HIV/AIDS education and maize production project for a period of 18 months or 3 growing seasons. $1,500 was for training, materials, and administrative costs in the first six months. The balance was for grants to the widows of $1,250 for each of 3 seasons.

Magumba Nathan

2006-05-15T07:01:00.000+03:00

I've never been to Uganda. My one adventure oversees happened over thirty years ago. Old folks like me will understand that the memories of that don't seem so distant. That trip was to the British Isles. So I have to imagine Uganda. It helps to see pictures, and now that I have higher speed Internet access videos too. By way of The Kiva Chronicles I've been alerted to a couple of other blogs: Carl's Big Adventure and intocontext and both of them have provided visual images to feed my imagination.

I'm not sure for how long I've been corresponding with Nathan Magumba; it's over four years now. Nathan is nice to have sent me pictures over that time. This is a cropped version of a recent one. I've seen a couple of high school pictures and some snapshots over the years we've known each other. My old computer crashed and I lost some pictures. There's one I wish that I still had of Nathan plowing with an ox-drawn plow. I think of that one often not so much because of the image itself, but the story he told me. It's not a simple matter to lead an ox to plow. There was something very telling to me in his story of the necessity for compassion for the ox, at least to see things from the point of view of an ox. Nathan is able to plow fields with oxen.

The story told about awaking very early in the mornings well before dawn and working in the fields then rushing back for a quick bath then going to school. All this without resentment, to the contrary a sense of privilege. He expressed such gratitude to the family whose farm he worked while going to high school; remembering being cared for when he was sick and trousers bought for him. How he engaged in his lessons at school and remembering his teacher exhorting him and the other students to be all they could become. Nathan has reminded me that he shares the humanist values of the Enlightenment, that history isn't an easy stereotype.

It's been a little complicated that right at the time of starting this blog there are moves on the ground which may affect the future of the BSLA, but now is not the time to share them in public. Nathan's been quite busy suffice it to say, and it's best for me to let him decide what to say when.

He sent me his resume which he wrote to share with those abroad taking an interest in the BSLA. Resumes are such pain to write! There are too many models to chose from. Also from what I can see Curriculum Vitae are more commonly used in Uganda. The important thing in the USA is to get everything on a single page and that doesn't seem the norm there.

The document seems rather stiff to me. It also doesn't convey all the genuine skills he possesses. Since 2002 Nathan has been the Telecentre Assistant, Instructor and Cashier at Iganga Senior Secondary School. The telecentre there was started in conjunction with SchoolNet Uganda. SchoolNet has been an important bridge across the digital divide in Uganda and in other developing countries.

Through his association with the Iganga Secondary School Nathan has received certification in Introduction to Computers and in Microsoft Applications. He also attended a week long workshop in Computer Maintenance and Repair. He earned a diploma in Computers and Business Management through correspondence with Cambridge International College.

Something I hadn't known before was that right out of his A-Level diploma he taught primary students for a year. For a young man, Nathan has experience in teaching. My degree is in education, and from my little experience I know it's not so easy. I smile thinking about his story of what it means to lead an ox to plow. The key to teaching is empathy; a second key is necessary too and that's knowledge of the subject matter. Nathan knows his way around popular computer software, much less common skills there than they are here. And Nathan has done much to make those skills more widespread where he is. He's taught many people in the community how to access the Internet and to use email.

As I look at his CV I see his experience, and know that it's only a beginning. At times Nathan reminds me: "Rome wasn't built in a day." That's true, of course, but in his workman like composition of his life, it's easy to see he's creating something good.

Mobilize the Community

2006-05-02T07:25:00.000+03:00

That's a picture of people in Pittsburgh participating in The Global Night Commute. The picture was taken by Peter Okema Otika (I reduced the file size).

On Saturday night people in many cities across the globe walked into their towns to spend the night in order to draw attention to the children who commute into Gulu and other towns to seek protection from abductions. On Sunday there was a large rally in Washington DC to urge International attention and action in Darfur.

I'm a bit ashamed to say I didn't attend either event. But I'm quite heartened by them both because it signals that many Americans are beginning to pay attention to African issues. There is of course a difference between the attention of national governments and the attentions of ordinary people. It's the second kind I'm most encouraged by, but the first that might seem to matter the most.

The USA is a place where there are many people of different heritages. Some American families are here because of awful wars and persecution. That doesn't mean there are no tensions between people of different ethnic backgrounds, indeed there are. Still, most Americans have some sense that we are a country of many peoples and traditons. One of the classic pieces of writing from 1930's America is Seventy Thousand Assyrians by William Saroyan. There is a line in it I always remember:

I think now that I have affection for all people, even for the enemies of Armenia, whom I have so tactfully not named. Everyone knows who they are. I have nothing against any of them because I think of them as one man living one life at a time, and I know, I am positive, that one man at a time is incapable of the monstrosities performed by mobs. My objection is to mobs only.

Paul Rusesabagina insists:

[H]uman beings were designed to live sanely, and sanity always returns.

There's something of that in Saroyan's contention of what an ordinary man is incapable of. People throughout time have committed the most heinous acts, and yet we are, our ordinary state as human beings is not to behave so badly.

The important thing is to find ways for people to do good. These recent rallies are a way for people to register their intention to pay attention. Certainly a part of that is to influence politics, but another part is simply to say to one another, and to people in Northern Uganda and Darfur that we are paying attention.

I'm not sure many people are interested in hearing what I have to say here in this blog. Mostly I hope to read what members of the BSLA have to say. The point is for this blog to become a way for ordinary people to communicate across the distances.

I was moved to read a statement on one of the pages of the Japanese drumming group Kodo. It seems appropirate to the work of the BSLA:

In ancient Japan the taiko was a symbol of the rural community and it is said that the limits of the village were defined not by geography but by the furthest distance at which the taiko could be heard. It is Kodo's hope with the One Earth Tour to bring the sound of the taiko to people around the globe, so that we may all be reminded of our membership in that much larger community: the world.

With Kodo the sound of the drum is literal, in a figurative sense the boundaries of our villages are stretched by the sounds of a world of drumming. It becomes a matter of finding artful ways to harmonize the sounds of our drums and to create a drumming heart beat for our joined-together world.

One of the greatest tasks for the BSLA is to create fellowship within the local communities where you operate. From that fellowship the objectives to increase education, to promote health, to nurture livelihood and to foster stewardship of the environment will follow. Promoting fellowship with concerend people everywhere will help us all.

Micro-Credit

2006-04-27T09:02:00.000+03:00

It's late now so I hope I'll keep this post short;-) It's funny from my position here in western Pennsylvania. Spring has come so we have warm days, although I bet you'd think them cold. But I just stepped out to see a frost has fallen. The tulips here were so beautiful yesterday, but a hard frost made them nod their big heads and the tender leaves of some garden flowers were burnt by the frost. That's gardening here in the springtime.

I know that the BSLA is busy with many activities right now. I also know that some of those probably shouldn't be discussed publicly at this time. It's a little hard to always know the what's okay and what's not. I hope you'll feel free to edit out information that's best not public now.

One of the efforts we are working on is developing a micro-credit and savings scheme--revolving credit--for women in villages. The work on the proposal is very good, but it raises questions and problems to be solved too.

It seems quite possible that the BSLA may be able to find donors to fund some loans, so lets proceed with the assumption that we can find an infusion of money. Ah, but then it's a separate problem of how village women will earn money within the community using their loans. The fact that many in the communities have little money to spend makes earning money a real challenge.

Looking over the business that are being funded by Kiva in various communities around the world one can see that there are a wide range of businesses. It also seems clear that many of the loans are made to established businesses so that these businesses can grow. That makes sense because the people getting the loans have already proven that they can make money with their businesses.

The target population of our proposal is different. These women do not already have businesses, the loans are meant for them to use to create businesses. One thing true is that many businesses fail. It's very important for the future of BSLA micro-credit programs that most of the businesses succeed! So we have to pay close attention and be very sure that these loans if we can get funding for them actually are used to make businesses providing goods and services that people in the communities will spend money on.

I was very impressed to see the Web site of The Uganda Community Tourism Association. There the development of handicraft businesses is hand in hand with the development of tourism. Tourist come and purchase goods and services to make their visit an adventure. So in this plan the money comes from outside the community.

Also at Kiva I saw several loans for a village in Mali. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find them again when I looked for them a day or so ago. Those interested me quite alot because the micro-loans were shared by groups. Each group had a leader who was responsible for the loan, but the risk of not being able to pay it back was shared. That is the loan was divided between the member of the group so that each member was responsible for a small amount of money.

This seems a particularly good plan for dealing with loans for agriculture. One of the plans provided seeds and other inputs for a group of farmers. By joining together it perhaps makes the marketing of their crops better. Most importantly ill-health or some other misfortune will not jeopardize the whole loan. If one of the farmers gets ill others might help with his crops so that the crops could be brought to market anyway. That's a good measure of security.

In that same village several women--I think it was about a dozen-- divided a loan so that each woman would get an equal amount of money to buy materials for making handicrafts. Again pooling the resources has many advantages: they can make lots of product and the marketing and business planning can be shared.

There are special challenges for developing micro-credit programs for the poorest people. Business requires planning. One of the most important things is to have a solid plan that the goods or services will be purchased. The point is to make enough money to repay the loan and to make some profit. For people making their first business, the idea of groups or teams seems like it would often be a good idea to reduce the risk that the loans will be paid back. The BSLA cannot afford too many failures in the beginning.

So I ask that we keep in mind the question: Where's the money coming from? By that I mean the money for the products and services produced by the businesses, not the question: Where are the loans coming from.

The picture is from a BSLA small garden project in Nawasinge. Small raised garden beds which were intensely planted were made in that village.

BSLA Organisational Management

2006-04-26T09:48:00.002+03:00

Organization Structure

(a) General Assembly
The general assembly is the supreme organ of BSLA and is responsible for electing board members, approving policies and programmes of the organization.

(b) Management Committee
A nine-man committee is elected after every one year to manage and over see the affairs of BSLA for period.

(c) Secretariat
BSLA has a secretariat of five qualified and experienced staff in the field of Agriculture, Finance and Accounting, Social work and Administration

Identifying Local Resources

2006-04-26T08:13:00.000+03:00

Wow I always let things go until it's late at night. It's rather fun at the beginning of a blog because I don't have to worry much about lots of people reading what I write. It's true that every blog post could be improved by taking the time to do a second draft, but there's also some advantages of just saying what's on the mind. It seems perfectly okay to have very conversational post along with ones that take a little more time to develop on the same blog.

I added some links. While I was doing that I was thinking about how important it is, when thinking about developing programs to sustain micro-credit for enterprise building, that we take an inventory of resources that are local. It is good to identify the problems and challenges of the area too. But the way that loans will have a positive effect is by building on what's already there.

One of the links is to KickStart. I see now that I used and older site in the sidebar, that's because they used to be called Appro TEC, an organization which develops new market technologies to be bought by local entrepreneurs. For example they are the ones who developed that seed oil press we talked about a long time ago. KickStart believes that it's best if people buy their products rather than giving them away. One reason for their growth and success has been that the product designs are fully connected in the local economies. They are built in Africans, sold by Africans to Africans.

Not everyone is really made to be an entrepreneur and to start their own businesses. One of KickStart's products is a water pump for agricultural use. The least expensive model is over seventy dollars US. A person has to be quite serious about making the decision to buy one. So they KickStart sees people buying theri products as a way to make people think seriously about their businesses and to think about how the purchase will help them over the long term.

I also put a link up for the Village Enterprise Fund. That's an interesting organization which is working closely with Kiva. Instead of sponsoring micro-credit, like Kiva, the Village Enterprise Fund gives grants. I also put a link to Travels with Carl because it's a good idea to look at the work that Kiva and VEF are doing in the Tororo District so we can learn from their experience. Something for certain is micro-loans by themselves aren't enough: there have to be programs in place to make sure that the businesses and other uses for the loans and grants have a good chance of success.

It's important for the BSLA to consider ways of attracting investments in the community. At the same time we as an organization have to find ways to make sure those investments will genuinely help, and to find ways to help people getting loans to make money to pay them back by developing income generating activities over the long run. At the same time we have to support the efforts of the BSLA while we're doing all these things. It's quite a puzzle to fit together.

One good reason to write about the problems we're trying to solve publically is that many people can work together to help find solutions, even to help us find the missing pieces.

I think it will be a good idea to save lots of links on the sidebar here. As many organizations who are working in the same district as the BSLA and have some sort of Web page should be linked to. We're open to suggestions for links to add. Also I hope a few members will write posts for this blog and that you suggest that they do.

I haven't really gotten to the point of this post, but it's late now so I'll leave it for another day. Before I go I'll link to this post over at the Kiva Chronicles. Wow, they met Dr. Mohammed Yunus! There's a good picture too. That reminds me, I need to add the Grameen Foundation to the links. Okay tomorrow;-)

Creativity

2006-04-25T09:05:00.000+03:00

John,

Thank you very much for your efforts, I like people who are constructive and developmental, What you you have done is really a good idea, this one way for promoting BSLA activities Internationally.

Being an administrator, I will try my level best to update the BSLA blog on daily basis. I want to work hand in hand with you, so that we gain a small donation for the start of the BSLA Micro-Lending Project. Micro-lending can be a tool to help eliminate Poverty from this region. "Behind every a success there must be a successful woman" So we want to find ways to develop enterprises for women in the villages to use small loans to develop income generating businesses and activities. John, we want you to be instrumental which BSLA in make this happen.

It is a long journey ever since we started the BSLA, but then here is the time BSLA to make a blog. It will the very project to find solutions and support for the Poultry project, and Adult Education programs. It's also a way to work out a clear direction; to identify the problems and to find solutions for implementing savings and lending projects to encourage income generation among the people in our region.

We have found fellowship together. I've learned from our friendship that people from far and wide can find common purpose together. I said when we first wrote that I was interested in exchanging views. I still am. It's fun to learn about the lives of people everywhere. I hope people reading this blog will enjoy learning more about us and our community and will leave comments so we all can engage in conversation. Together we will all be stronger and happier.

Thank you for creating this Blog

Nathan

Inaugural Post

2006-04-25T07:37:00.000+03:00

Hello, I'm John Powers. I'm also known as Kaunda over at the Bazungu Bucks blog. For several years now I've been corresponding with Magumba Nathan who lives near Iganga, Uganda. Nathan has been instrumental in organizing a community-based organization there called the Busoga Shining Light Association, the BSLA for short.

It's always a struggle to do the right thing; that is to invent just the right effort. Nathan works full-time as well as trying to organize activities and manage the BSLA as the organization's Chair. So most of the time our conversations center around those issues.

For a time the BSLA had static Web pages the BSLA was paying for. There are too many Web pages out there to attract attention, and who needs yet another brochureware page anyway? For a while now, Nathan and I have talked about using a blog for a Web site. It's important to understand that access to the Internet is much more of an effort for the members of the BSLA there in Uganda than it is for people in many other places, even Kampala, Uganda's capital city. So we've been slow to begin a blog.

Recently Dave Winer wrote The Internet as "idea processor" :

The value of writing publicly on the Internet is that you can solve problems quickly, by using a network of people who pool what they know to create something larger. When the Internet works this is why it works.

Wow, is he ever right about that. So it's better late than never for the BSLA to start blogging and to make public our network to expand it.